Shark slaughter ban drives fishermen into people smuggling trade

MARK COLVIN: The international campaign against killing sharks for their fins has been a big success, but it's had an unintended consequence.

The crash in the price of shark's fins has impoverished fishermen from the island of Rote, in eastern Indonesia, and driven many of them towards the people smuggling trade.

Kate Evans reports from Papela on the island of Rote.

KATE EVANS: Like most men from his village, Rahman Djalilan has been a shark fisherman all his adult life.

Each dry season he sails south from Papela on a traditional wooden boat into Australian waters - the area around Ashmore, Scott and Cartier reefs.

RAHMAN DJALILAN (translated): It's very risky, because sometimes the wind is too strong, the sea is wide, and there is no land, only small islands.

KATE EVANS: Shark fin is a lucrative product that's ideal for boats with no refrigeration. Until recently, fishermen could make a couple of hundred dollars after a month at sea.

But when the fin price slumped in 2012, Rahman started coming home with just $40 or $50.

Hamstrung by debt, he decided to turn to what he says he saw as the only other option - people smuggling.

RAHMAN DJALILAN (translated): The risks of those jobs are the same. But bringing immigrants pays more than shark fishing.

VANESSA JAITEH: People smuggling has really become a solution for many of the fishers.

KATE EVANS: Vanessa Jaiteh is a marine biologist from Murdoch University researching shark fishing across Indonesia. She has spent three months in Papela and interviewed around 80 fishers.

VANESSA JAITEH: Eighty per cent of my respondents have said that they've thought about taking asylum seekers to Australia.

A people smuggler will get about $2,500 per trip if he's the skipper, a crew member will get about $1,000 to $1,500.

KATE EVANS: But Rahman's trip earlier this year was a failure. The motor on the shoddy boat provided by the smuggling boss broke down just off West Java. He was questioned by Indonesian police, sent home with a warning and paid nothing.

But while the choices fishermen like Rahman make have implications for Australia, Australian policies too have contributed to some of the fishers' economic problems. Vanessa Jaiteh, again.

VANESSA JAITEH: The first main factor was that a lot of boats were being burnt by the Australian Government.

KATE EVANS: These waters were claimed by Australia in the 1970s as part of its expansion of sovereignty to 200 nautical miles off the coast.

But under an Australian Memorandum of Understanding with Indonesia, Rotenese fishermen were given permission to continue to fish in the area now known as the "MOU Box."

If they're caught breaking the rules though, they can be fined, and as the fishers can rarely pay, they're imprisoned in Australia, paying off the fine through jail time.

And their boats can be burnt too. During a crackdown in the mid 2000s, hundreds of Indonesian boats were destroyed every year.

In Papela, that's left an unintended legacy, Vanessa Jaiteh says. That's because most fishers don't own their boats, but borrow them on credit from a local 'boss.'

So when their boats were burned, fishermen like Rahman ended up with huge debts.

VANESSA JAITEH: They have this debt with the boss so the boss forces them to go fishing again, even though the weather might be very bad, and they can't get enough sharks, and it gets them very little money because the shark fin prices have dropped and this is just this endless cycle.

And so people smuggling basically offers them an option to, or a chance for repaying all of their debt in one go.

KATE EVANS: Vanessa Jaiteh says although there have been several recent Australian initiatives aiming to help the Papela fishers find alternative livelihoods, these haven't had much success.

VANESSA JAITEH: Basically a solution has to be economically equal or better than shark fishing.

KATE EVANS: In the meantime, fishermen like Rahman feel they have little choice.

RAHMAN DJALILAN (translated): Bringing immigrants is illegal. I didn't want to do it. But the economy is so low. So I was forced to try it - whatever the risks.